This book is decidedly not a work of scholarship, stubbornly not. It offers a holistic interpretation of Plato’s Symposium, as is conventional among scholarly books, but departs by presenting it as a series of musings, beginning with the puzzles of the dialogue’s various parts, long perplexing to me, and ascending therefrom in the direction of the whole. I have chosen this style because I am interested not so much in speaking to scholars as I am in guiding those similarly perplexed, those whose questions come from within and whose paths are their own, rather than those who take their bearings by the community of the learned, with their pre-existing concerns and themes. … This book is therefore not a work of scholarship but a study, properly a study: a book written, in other words, by a student and for a student and for fellow students, serious students, be this their first frolic with the Symposium or only the latest in a long string of dalliances. It presumes, then, and reasonably enough, that its readers actually want to think…
(From the Preface)

This book was a delight to read and ponder the musings when I recently revisited the Symposium. There have been many parts of the dialogue that have puzzled me, and Priou’s book helped frame for me what is happening. The old saw about asking the right question is sometimes more important than the answer definitely applies here. Fortunately, the questions and musings within this book go well beyond the usual minutiae or technical points raised in academic papers and makes the Symposium approachable, even accessible, for the lay person.

There are 49 short chapters with plenty of questions in them regarding this dialogue on the nature of love. In a sense, Priou makes reading the Symposium harder since he asking questions on what is beneath the surface of the text, often pointing toward and musing on what is left out and why that might be. But the work he asks the reader to do provides a bigger payoff in having read the dialogue, especially if (like me) you don’t have the formal philosophy training that most academic works assume the reader has. Some of the chapters are specific just to a particular point in the dialogue, while other chapters help with the overall understanding of the text.

One example of the musings I enjoyed: at the end of the dialogue [223b], a crowd of revelers burst into the room and disrupt the proceedings. It is mentioned the door was open since someone had left, but who? I had not even considered that point but now realize there are enough clues to figure it out, leading to the further question about why he left. Priou’s possible answer to ‘why’ adds some cruel humor to the dialogue that is easily missed.

Priou touches on the historical background of the dialogue, such as the looming Sicilian expedition by Athens during the Peloponnesian War, but not overdoing it. The chapters on Alcibiades and the recreation of what his speech must have actually been like adds to the overall humor. Priou’s enthusiasm for and love of the work shines throughout the book. There needs to be more books like this to spur readers, especially those following paths of their own, to explore great books they might otherwise find intimidating or too daunting a task.